Paramore Discuss Forthcoming Self-Titled Album, Debut New Song “Now”

Pop-punk powerhouse Paramoremay have had some line-up changes, some ups-and-downs, and spent a lot of time in their pajamas in the last two years but “Now” lead vocalist Hayley Williams, bassist Jeremy Davis, and guitarist Taylor York finally feel like their newly-energized music career and upcoming self-titled album is “real.”

“Now that we’re back at KROQ; it’s official,” said Williams in an interview with Kevin & Bean. “It kind of feels like we just joined this band and we’re starting from scratch. It’s really nice. I don’t think a lot of bands get that chance, that feeling, you know? We’ve been playing music for what, almost ten years together, and this feels like day one.”

For some, there were doubts that Paramore would come back after their extended hiatus and interpersonal drama, but Williams said that they “held it together all right” and were humbled and realistic about the future. They kept in mind that even bands with the best energy have off days.

“It was definitely hard at first, but we had to keep in our minds, ‘Move forward. Move forward. Move forward.'” Part of the way Paramore moved forward was to make a grand statement with the bold choice of using their name as an album title. While most bands do that on their first album, Paramore did that on their fourth to showcase their new beginning.

With singles like “Now,” it’s clear that their sound is as fresh as their perspective. “There needs to be an evolutions,” joked Williams. “So, now it’s seventeen tracks of dubstep.”

OK, so it’s not, but Paramore decided when they felt uninspired that they had already written all their old-style Paramore songs and that they can always play those prototypical Paramore sounding songs live for their fans. They wanted to experiment and push themselves; subsequently the band ended up writing way more songs than they usually do. Their leftover songs will be b-sides or recorded in Taylor’s home studio to possibly be released at a later date.

“It was just really liberating,” said Williams of the music writing process. “I think the fact that no one was shooting anyone down, it was just like, let’s just try everything, we don’t know anything, it was this real naïve excitement…We just felt like we were starting over so why not try everything.”

The forward-thinking trio just finished wrapping a futuristic music video for their single “Now” that they said has a “post-apocalyptic, kinda sci-fi” video with director Daniel Cloud Campos that made Williams feel like matching-coiffed Leeloo from 5th Element or someone from Resident Evil. “It was really cool, just very different for us and active.” The song itself seems to go with the vibe of their video.

“It’s just about sort of reaching forward and claiming victory over whatever is to come,” explained Williams. “You know that something’s out there waiting on you; when it’s really good and you just claim it. You have to believe it before you see it sometimes and that’s definitely what we did with this album.”

Paramore‘s self-titled fourth album is scheduled to be released on April 9, 2013 through Fueled by Ramen. Below, watch the trailer for their album: